Insomnia
by Katt9966
Summary: A response to the challenge to write a story with as many words beginning with the letter "z" as possible. An episode tag for "Barnstormers".


Title: - Insomnia.

Author: - Katt.

E-mail: - kattanonhotmail.com

Rating: - PG.

Feedback: - Like it or loathe it let me know.

Archive: - Archived at the Shield Fanfiction Archive.

Disclaimer: - I don't own any of the characters of The Shield, they all belong to Shawn Ryan and FX.

Author's Notes: - This is a response to the "Z" challenge, which is to write a story with as many words beginning with Z in it as possible. It's also an episode tag for "Barnstormers".

Insomnia.

Insomnia, Jesus it was the bane of Dutch's life. He wished he had a dollar for every night he'd spent tossing and turning, wandering the house, unable to sleep, he'd probably be worth a zillion dollars by now, well a millionaire anyway. Also he knew he'd be spending the next day zoned out through exhaustion feeling like a zombie.

He sat in his living room zapping from one channel to another, not finding anything to engage his attention. Early morning TV left a lot to be desired. A wildlife programme showed a terrified zebra, which despite its desperate zigzagging flight, was being pulled down to its death by several lions. Dutch shuddered in horror at the look of fear in the zebra's eyes as it succumbed. Then he came across a gardening programme explaining how to get spiritual in your Zen garden, which seemed to be a collection of pebbles with a bit of grass sprouting here and there. Again Dutch shuddered in horror, but this time at the thought that there were people who were pretentious enough to want to rake pebbles in their garden.

Maybe he should just give up he thought, as he flicked off the TV. Maybe he should just take his Zolpidem and surrender to the drug induced slumber it would produce. However, he didn't want to do that. It seemed like he would be admitting defeat if he had to take sleeping pills. Besides he didn't like the way he knew he'd feel the next day. He'd feel sluggish until at least lunchtime the next day, and he'd just got his groove back, he couldn't lose it now. Although if he got no sleep he'd be tired the next day the Zolpidem would affect him even more, so he opted for the lesser of two evils. Especially now he knew that Aceveda and Claudette were both looking over his shoulder, waiting for him to fail again.

Claudette's betrayal of him, by going to Aceveda with her concerns, instead of coming to him, had hurt him more than Dutch wanted to admit even to himself. He'd had to zip his mouth shut to make sure he hadn't said something to Claudette about trust and partnership that he might later regret. However, he felt a part of the zest he had for their partnership had been destroyed by her act. He couldn't deal with that just now. He was far more concerned with the other awful thing that had happened that day; he'd nearly become a dirty cop.

Dutch felt his stomach roll with nausea just at the thought of what he'd been so close to doing. He'd known Stu was guilty of strangling Leah, but he wasn't confident enough in his own ability to prove it. God knows after the Bob and Marcy mess he was barely confident enough in his own judgement to pick what he wanted for breakfast in the morning. He really hadn't needed the lecture from Aceveda to rub it in. He'd been well aware that the case had hardly been the zenith of his career. He'd come out of Aceveda's office feeling like a failure. His self-esteem, while never very high, had been at a complete zero. All the zeal he'd had for his job was crushed out of him.

So what had he done? He'd taken Vic Mackey's advice, and tried to plant evidence at Stu's apartment to implicate him in Leah's murder. God, how could he have been so stupid. If he'd gone through with it he knew he'd never be able to look at himself in the mirror again. Dutch knew such things went on, but he'd never stooped so low himself. It had been close though. Another couple of minutes, if he hadn't stopped his car in the middle of the street, and zoomed back as fast as he could run, and Danny might have found that bra clasp.

It wasn't as if he'd have gotten away with it either, for an attempt at evidence planting it had been pretty pathetic. Forensics wouldn't have been fooled for an instant. They'd have known that the clasp didn't match the bra that had been used to kill Leah, and that would've been it. Stu would've gotten away with murder, and he would've lost his job, maybe even gone to prison.

Thank God he'd seen sense, and changed his mind. Not only had he done the right thing, but also he'd got Stu to crack, and had re-gained some of his confidence in his abilities. Now if he could just set his conscience to rest he might get some sleep tonight.

His eyes felt hot and dry from being over-tired, and he closed them, but gave up when sleep yet again refused to come. Oh well, maybe he should use his time constructively since it didn't look like he would be getting any sleep tonight. So with a sigh Dutch picked up the latest copy of "Psychology Review" from the table, and opened it up. Glancing at the clock he realised it was only another three hours before he'd have been getting up anyway.


End file.
